


An Uncharted Christmas Bakeoff

by A_Damned_Scientist



Category: Farscape
Genre: Challenge Response, Christmas Fluff, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-17
Updated: 2019-12-17
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:07:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21837937
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/A_Damned_Scientist/pseuds/A_Damned_Scientist
Summary: John and Aeryn get competitive baking Christmas treats, while D'Argo Sun Crichton is getting a bit old for bedtime stories from fiery redheads.
Relationships: John Crichton/Aeryn Sun
Comments: 2
Kudos: 3





	An Uncharted Christmas Bakeoff

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Mariefrell for the plot bunny that started me off on this fic and to Sponge for the starburst challenge.
> 
> Setting: Some time post PKW. No warnings or spoilers to speak of. PG for mild bad language and some low level suggestiveness, but no smut.
> 
> No beta so all mistakes are entirely my fault.
> 
> Merry Frelling Christmas

**An Uncharted Christmas Bakeoff (PG)**

“Christmas is coming and Rygel’s getting fat,” John sang happily to himself. It was Christmas Eve, by his best reckoning, and this Christmas he had promised a number of Erp delicacies to the crew. Yes, sure there was the small problem of not having any of the right ingredients to bake Grandma Crichton’s Special Buttermilk Chocolate Chip Cookies, or anything else in his festive Erp repertoire come to that, but he’d sent Aeryn out three arns earlier with a list of ingredients and his jirl could always be relied upon to save his bacon. Not least because she had refused to eat it when they had visited his home planet decades earlier.

Hmm. Bacon. John wondered if she’d manage to lay her hands on any...?

“You’re cheerful,” Aeryn announced, walking into the central chamber followed, mother duck like, by a herd of DRDs. The little yellow robots were towing a selection of shopping bags perched atop what looked to John like little roller skates. They might well be skates, he supposed, as Aeryn had developed a weird interest in roller skating when on Erp and had returned with quite a collection of small, wheeled footwear. It seemed she was now improvising an interesting new use for her collection.

John greeted Aeryn with a kiss.

A long kiss.

A very long kiss. Why not, it was Christmas, after all.

The kiss went on… and on… and….

A DRD beeped impatiently, setting off a chorus of increasingly intrusive beeps from the others. A couple of them began to nudge their ankles. Then butt against them. Finally, to silence the growing cacophony and head off the risk of bruising, John was forced to conclude the kiss.

“Later?” Aeryn arched an eyebrow and smirked. John nodded and grinned back.

“So, did you get everything honey?” John asked as they began unloading bags from roller skates and packages from bags. “We gotta get baking. Noranti says we have three arns till dinner!”

“Well. Sort of, yes,” Aeryn answered, her tone bordering on the evasive. Then she smiled radiantly. “But it’s probably all gone off while you’ve been succumbing to your hormones,” she winked, teasing him as she patted a newly relieved DRD on the carapace. It scurried off to the hallway, where it paused to wait for its friends.

“So, how did you manage to find chocolate?” John asked, lifting a bag of something unknown.

“Nobody but Erp has chocolate, John, you know that,” Aeryn chided him. He was crestfallen. “But they did have something called chocketty.”

“Does it look like chocolate?” John asked, unpacking another bag.

“No.” she shrugged.

“Does it taste like chocolate?”

“No.” She shrugged with the other shoulder.

“Then why get…?”

“It sounds a bit like chocolate,” she interrupted. “Do you want it or not?”

“Fine, give it to me,” John huffed.

Aeryn handed John a large bottle containing some thick, gungy, green looking gunk.

“That’s it?” He pulled a disgusted face.

“That’s it.” Aeryn nodded. “Chokkety.”

“Well…” John sighed. “So long as it isnt some sort of critter that might destroy the known universe. It will have to do. Sugar?”

“Of course.” Aeryn allowed herself a contented smile. “I just had to threaten the right drug dealers…”

“You had to WHAT?” John spluttered in horror. Was she kidding? She had to be kidding. She did that now, sometimes.

“I thought Rygel had explained it to you?” Aeryn sighed, face completely straight. “Sugar is illegal in this part of the Universe.” Aeryn rolled her eyes as though she were explaining something basic to one of their offspring for the eighty ninth time. Frell, she wasn’t kidding! “It’s an addictive drug… It’s illegal. Not like on your backwards planet…”

“Fine. Give it to me.” John tried to make the best of it. Aeryn lifted a big bag of white powder and dumped it on the worktop.

“There you go….” She stated flatly. “Junkie,” she added sotto voce. John chose to ignore the slight.

“Flour?” he pressed on.

“Two Kelots of ground Rollis buds. I picked them myself.” She dumped a massive bag on the counter. It landed with a dull thud.

“Rollis…?” John’s jaw flapped as he tried to process her words. “No! I said flour not flower!” He protested.

“And that’s what you got. Flower.” Aeryn stated shooting him an irritated scowl. John knew that look, knew not to press matters further.

“Milk?” he changed tack.

“Well, that requires a mammalian female, and there aren’t any on Jalpong 3, so I had a little chat with the jirls....” Aeryn chattered on.

“You WHAT?” John couldn’t help but ask. He knew he shouldn’t, but couldn’t help himself. It was like trying not to stare at an automobile accident.

“Well, we put our heads together. You said you needed two lotras… so all did our bit, although Sikozu was no use of course, and Chiana was not much better, and we didn’t want to ask Noranti….”

“What are you saying, Aer?” John felt like he was a character in some sort of weird surreal comedy.

“That we’d not have managed without Jool. She supplied a full lotra. Do you want it or not?” Aeryn plonked a large bottle of familiar looking white liquid down on the counter.

John eyed the bottle suspiciously for a few microts before deciding it was probably the closest thing to what he wanted that he would get for any of his ingredients. OK, so it was a bit unconventional, but wasn’t that his whole life these days? He shrugged and sighed, resolving not to think too hard about it.

“I want it…. Just don’t tell me any more of the details!” he pleaded.

“Fine!” Aeryn pouted. “Well, that’s everything you wanted on the counter. I’ll let you get on with your baking, and I’ll start mine. Where are the offspring?” Aeryn asked.

“Joolie is with Pip and 1812 playing hide and seek and Sputnik is teaching Deke something….”

“What’s she teaching him?” Aeryn snapped, scowling for reasons which escaped John.

“Umm… interpersonal relationships?” John ventured. “At least I think that’s what she said?”

“What, like talking to people without hitting them?” Aeryn ventured as she started unpacking more ingredients at the adjacent counter.

“Yeah I think that’s it. So, did you get the stuff for your special Paintony, then?” He asked, casting curious glances at the weird, alien ingredients she was now unpacking.

“I did, and you know it’s not called that!” Aeryn tried to stifle a pout. She was clearly trying not to sulk. She looked adorable when she wore that mood.

“Yeah, but it ain’t panettone, either, is it?” He winked at her. She scowled back.

“No, it’s better, you’ll see.”

“Yeah, right!”

“You do your thing, and I’ll do mine,” she riposted. “And maybe we should ask the others later which is best?”

“Hey, it ain’t a competition, darlin’,” John retorted, employing his best boyish grin.

It didn’t work. Aeryn had a competitive streak to rival his own, after all.

“Isn’t it?” She arched an eyebrow. “Well, you just do your thing, and I’ll do mine! And we will see....”

‘~’

“Are you two still at it?” Noranti huffed three arns later as she entered the central chamber. And for once she wasn’t referring to them kissing or canoodling. “Come on! Five minutes to finish up, then you’re done! I’ve got dinner out already on Command and everyone is waiting!”

And she was as good as her word, five minutes later to the microt, and she insisted that they place their confections on two trays and take them through to command, where the rest of the crew were waiting to start dinner.

Everyone was there: Deke and Joolie, their offspring, along with all of the rest of the Moyans currently aboard. Fortunately for everyone’s chance of getting fed, Rygel was not currently in the room, but the jirls had entered into the spirit of things, Jool trimming her outfit with tinsel, Sikozu adding white fur to the hems of hers and Chiana going all in, dressed up as a Christmas elf.

“Nice outfits, ladies!” John grinned.

“Crichton...” Aeryn growled in warning. John readjusted his attitude, pretending never to have noticed them.

“Mine first, mine first!” John bounced around like an overexcited kid on Christmas Eve, which in a way he sort of was. “Grandma Crichton’s special buttermilk chocolate chip cookies!”

“Fine, we’ll try yours first,” Aeryn sighed, although she was grinning indulgently as he started handing them round. “Although if everyone feels too sick afterwards to try mine, you’re going to be in a lot of trouble...”

“How are they?” John asked the assembled crew as his offerings were nervously nibbled.

“They’re… umm different.” Chiana answered with considerable tact and ambiguity.

“Want juice!” Joolie announced, pulling a face.

“Aren’t you having any yourself?” Aeryn challenged with an arched eyebrow and a triumphant smirk.

John tried a nibble himself. What choice did he have? Rygel zoomed into the room and stuffed one into his mouth whole.

“Not what I expected, but… fine, yeah. I mean, they were supposed to be chocolate cookies but instead, they’re more, sort of…. Macaroons.”

“Whatever they are, they’re lovely, wonderfully sweet!” Jool contributed.

“Fine! My turn now!” Aeryn insisted, growing impatient. “Everyone stand well back!”

“Whys that babe?” John enquired as he marshalled everyone into a circle around Aeryn’s Paintony.

“Because before we eat it, we get to watch it put on a show!” Aeryn announced proudly. “See how it’s propped up on that stand?”

“Yeah, so...?”

“Sikozu, can you see the little, flat candles underneath? Can you do the honours?” Aeryn continued, every bit as excited about her confection as John had been about his.

Within a macrot of Sikozu lighting the candles the flat top of the almost conical dessert began to swell, then turn red, then it blew! A narrow cascade of white, glittery dust erupted forth, almost like a volcano.

Glittery white powder began to fill the chamber.

“Aeryn what is, ummm… in that…?”

“Sugar powder and glitter!” Aeryn giggled like a giddy teenager. “What does it look like? Sikozu helped me with the details… isn’t it brilliant!?”

“Shit” John cried. “Umm, everyone I think we should….”

John’s panicked intervention was interrupted by a violent and unexpected flash and an equally sudden and loud bang.

“Mama blows things up good!” Joolie giggled from beneath a somewhat shocked and messy Chiana.

“I reckon mom won,” Deke chuckled from the floor, where, equally dust-covered, he was now lying atop a flushed, dishevelled and surprised looking Sikozu. John tried to suppress the feeling that the sight of them like that was a foreshadowing of things to some. He boy was what, fourteen cycles now?

“What happened?” Aeryn asked in disappointment and surprise as she picked a fragment of Paintony out of her hair and wiped a sheen of dust from her eyes.

“Dust explosion!” John explained.

“It’s a thing that happens when you have a fine mist of aerosolised dust...” Jool explained, largely to herself.

Aeryn popped the lump of Paintony in her mouth and chewed on it for a microt before announcing: “Just a little over cooked.” She chewed a little more, swallowed, frowned and gagged a little. “And too much glitter.” She conceded.

“Pilot!” John commed. “DRD clean up squad to Command!”

“~”

“That’s everything done, mess cleaned up, stockings hung up in Pilot’s den, breakfast table laid out in the central chamber,” John announced, greeting Aeryn with a kiss on the lips as he arrived to find her already in their quarters, putting the finishing touches to her Sexy Santa outfit. “Hmm, nice outfit!”

“Well, I had to change after I got cleaned up,” she shrugged, but also grinned. “And I wanted to be sure it’d be my fancy dress you remember this evening...”

John couldn’t believe his luck was still holding out with the outfit. She still believed Olivia had slipped the costume into the massive pallet of goods she had brought back from Earth years earlier and had thus assumed was some sort of Erp female Christmas tradition. John wasn’t going to tell her that it was in fact him that had bought it in the feverish hope of seeing her wear it someday and then secretly sneaked it into her stash of Earth swag soon afterwards.

“Love you, babe.” He wrapped her in his arms and pulled her close. She grunted affirmation of the sentiment. Always one for outrageous displays of her emotions, his Aeryn.

“So are the offspring cleaned up and settled?” She finally replied, apparently allowing his hands furlough to wander where they may. So wander they did.

“Yeah, Joolie is already out for the count. Or she’s pretending to be.” John winked. “And Deke is getting a bed time story from Sputnik and Jool…”

“Isn’t he getting a little old…?” Aeryn pursed her lips and furrowed her brow, apparently oblivious to what his hands were doing with her eema.

“Of course he is,” John shrugged, his mind too preoccupied and deprived of adequate supplies of blood to think clearly. “But after he saw them all dressed up at the party he claimed to be too excited to sleep.”

“Then he’ll have even more trouble sleeping after his story, I expect,” Aeryn snorted.

"You what...? No no no, you can’t mean. No, I don’t think Deke fancies…?” Aeryn arched an eyebrow. It was all she needed to say. Teenage boy, getting a crush on the two older redheads who made up almost the only females in his life not related to him? Well, the apple didn’t fall so far from the tree. “Oh… well then... shouldn’t we…?”

“Shouldn’t we what?” Aeryn shrugged, reminding him that her cultural attitudes to sexuality were so different from his own. “They’ll be fine. And your cookies weren’t too bad either.” She conceded while clamping his wrists in her steely grip, one of her usual preludes to Taking Charge Of The Situation in a Domineering Manner. “I shall only add one day to your sentence for them.” She teased, easing him back towards the bed. What the frell had she meant by that?

“You what? Oh!” He exclaimed happily as she employed some sort of PK martial arts move to flip him onto his back on the bed and straddle him in one smooth move, pinning his upper arms beneath her knees. Just like old times.

“And your Paintony was delicious. Fun too…” John grinned back up at her. She shuffled down his abdomen, releasing his arms. “Although if you could Tony it down next year: there’s still DRDs on clean up duty.”

“Understood,” she nodded, leaning in then rubbing noses with him, her hair tickling him in all sorts of ticklish places.

The atmosphere was growing increasingly… toasty.

“Merry frelling Christmas, Commander Crichton, do you want to unwrap your present now?” She asked, allowing his hands to find the fastenings of her sexy Santa outfit.

John didn’t need to be asked twice. He’d always loved Christmas, after all. Especially the unwrapping presents part.

The end.


End file.
